1994 Subaru MV Pickup - Moving dolly completed!

I like these, bookmarked.

Cool, bookmarked!

I need one of these pups in my life...bookmarked

Update time, albeit a quick one as it's late.

Not got as much done as i'd like although things are starting to progress! Moved house a couple of weeks ago so that has eaten a lot of time, but it does mean that I know have a garage of my own:



Big enough to do genuine work in so this is a big step in the right direction for getting Sh1t done!

I love working where I do, lots of facilites at my disposal. One of the machining apprentices owed me a favour and so a carb adapter was created:



Bought some gasket paper off the bay of E and used the CAD model for the above adapter to make some perfect gaskets to mount it on using the laser cutter.



Trial fit time:



And its good, everything fits perfectly first time, very satisfying!

Next monday it's going for a tune up on the rolling road, and before that it's getting a really big service and treated to new fuel lines and filters. Wheels have also been sent off for powdercoating, so should have them back soon, I just wish there were more options available for 205/60/13 tyres, they are very thin on the ground these days.

Next update hopefully on the weekend, as I get all the above fitted.

That carb should give a hell of a lot more pep when setup dude, slightly hate you for the garage by the way! Lol

This car doesn't like me. What an annoying week so far!

Spent last weekend sorting it out for the rolling road session on Monday, no pictures unfortunately, other commitments and a deadline set way too soon by myself meant I had relatively little time to sort a lot of things.

New fuel lines and filters, spark plugs, ignition leads, dizzy cap and rotor arm fitted. Carburettor bolted on, and I got very very lucky where it ended up, the carb just touches one of the ignition lead silicone ends on the dizzy, must have measured slightly wrong when I was planning the carb adapter, thankfully it wasn't any nearer.

EGR blanked, lots of curse word emissions rubbish removed, the spare vac and breather lines going to said curse word blanked off, water heating to the carb blanked and a new throttle cable bracket made in 15 mins flat as I forgot about it until the last minute.

Ran out of time to do a few things, choke cable and air filter the major ones. I'm going to modify the original airbox as I quite like it!

Sunday afternoon rolls around and I try to start it for the first time with the new carb. Great success, two pumps of the throttle, first turn of the key and it fires up! I was delighted, didn't expect it to go that smoothly considering how quick I had to throw it all together.

Come Monday morning and everything was going well, got to work (where the pickup is currently housed) and my transport arrived to get it to the rolling road. The location of which is incredibly close to work, 500 metres, very handy! Due to the lack of choke cable and a very cold morning we elected to tow it there as it didn't want to run under load without choke. I steered the Subaru for the 1 minute journey, but I forgot to deice the screen before I jumped in, and there are currently no wipers on the car. Before I could do anything about it we were underway, and so followed one of the most tense minutes i've ever had, driving completely blind trying not to hit the kerb behind the tow van!

Thankfully I didn't hit anything so the pickup was pulled in and fired up on the rollers, idling very happily with the choke manually held on until it got warm. Getting it warm proved to be where things went wrong however! The radiator sprang a leak from what looked like the seam below the bottom hose, disaster!

Not wanting to risk any large coolant losses when being pushed on the rollers, disappointingly we decided to call it a day.....at 9.30am. So instead of taking a few hours off work to watch/help tuning the carb, we towed the Subaru back and I went to work and sulked all day!

That evening I took the rad off, couldn't see any cracks etc. but the general condition of it is awful, it's about knackered, lots of ins falling off and corroded. However the Subaru will be trailered home this weekend to start welding work (watch this space, this weekend will provide big updates!) and so I want to get it tuned whilst it's so handy to the rolling road as it's a fair way off an MOT atm. With that in mind, took it to be pressure tested at a local place, only to find no issues! Checked the hose and it's in good order too, so I think its the clamp I used, a wide mikalor hose clamp which i found at work (the old original clamp was ruined). The only thing I can think of was that the clamp was too wide and was therefore clamping the small flared section of the radiator pipe and not the proper flat section, causing it to leak.

So, i'm gonna put it back together tomorrow night, run it to see if its ok with a narrower clamp. If that works it'll go back on the rolling road Thursday and get transported home that very evening!

And the last nugget of annoyance, I emptied the jerry can of fuel into the car so I could give it back to guy I borrowed it from. The fuel tank leaks! It's had a crappy repair where the filler joins onto the main tank and it was dripping out! Argh! Very frustrating.

So what did it make on the rollers?

Looking great so far dude. Great to see another Brat on here!

Thanks guys, pneuma yours is awesome, certainly an inspiration for this project.

Got my wheels back from powder coating, i'm rather pleased they look great!






Tyres are ordered so they'll be tried on soon, can't wait!

Thanks again to MrSpeedy, the banding has transformed these wheels